The Shieldmaiden and Her Knight
by FloggingBri
Summary: The last thing Asta felt before she fell to the ground was the large arrow piercing her leather armor and skin. Tristan walks up on a small battlefield of men and women...Woads? Saxons? Romans? But one woman, away from the rest is still alive. Who is this woman and where did she come from? Can the woman with so much ice in her veins melt Tristan's heart?


Hey all! Apparently I had a technical difficulty (please stand by) but I think I fixed it so here is the beginning of my story _The Shieldmaiden and Her Knight._ I have no beta, so all mistakes are my own and I'm sure there are plenty. This is the first big story I've written so any feedback would be appreciated. Thank you! ~^-^~

Disclaimer: I own nothing - just the idea of Asta and wishing I had come up with the movie **King Arthur...** but alas, I did not.

The last thing she remembered was being struck in chest with a giant arrow. The thud it made as it hit her leather armor and then the blinding pain. She gasped then fell to her knees in the crunching and bitterly cold snow that covered the ground and all went dark.

They had been on the move for days now, patrolling in the bone achingly cold that was Britain's winter.

Tristan was further ahead than the rest of them and was the first to notice the small battle ground.

Dark red splattered across the brilliantly white snow and dozens of bodies lay on the frozen ground. He got off his horse and slowly drew his sword.

Woads. And Romans.

He noticed one woman off away from the rest, laying in a small circle of blood. A broken arrow shaft was sticking out of her intricately designed leather armor just above her right breast. Her blonde hair was matted with dark, mottled blood and sticking to the side of what must be an unmarred and beautiful face, under those random splotches of blood.

The snow crunched under his light step as he eased away from her.

A loud pained gasp stopped him mid-stride.

Tristan turned quickly back around to see the woman's eyes open and taking shallow, quick breaths. She turned her head towards him and stilled. With her left arm she shakily reached for a small knife at her side.

Asta's wrist was pinned in the snow before she could blink. Tristan was hovering over her, his dark coal eyes daring her to move. His long braids fell against her face, moving against her frozen skin as he breathed in and out.

She opened her hand to show she meant not to use the weapon.

"Woad..." He said simply.

He became reluctant to help the woman then as his eyes moved over the shivering pale skin of her arms that showed blue tattoos that disappeared under her armor.

"Woad?" She asked, looking perplexed.

That made him more confident she wasn't as she appeared.

Asta swallowed loudly, closing her eyes, and then opening her bright ocean blue eyes, turned her head to look at the arrow shaft that had been broken in her torso and cursed.

" _Bikkja_..."

She reached for the cursed piece of wood but Tristan stopped her.

He never said anything as he picked her up, Asta holding back a cry of pain as her arm shifted, the head of the arrow exiting its resting place in the soft snow which had kept it from entering back into her chest as she had fallen. Tristan never made a sound as he carried her towards his horse, Cain.

He found it ironic to name his horse after a name he had heard Arthur speak about from his book about his god, but he had explained that the name was about a man that had killed his brother but his god made it so he would not die. (This made little sense to Tristan but found the man who could not die intriguing.) This moved the knight for some reason seeing the foal he had raised, the small, gangly thing who had almost died three times in the process of being nursed to health day and night by Tristan, and thought it a fitting, though ironic, name.

"Do you speak my tongue?" He asked her.

"Yes," Asta answered simply with an accent Tristan couldn't quite place; it was a mix of that which he had heard from the Britons most of his life but then there was something else not of this island.

"Are you a Woad?"

"A Woad? You mean the men and women who live north of the Wall?" She looked at him, her eyes drifting closed and her speech slurring. "Would you kill me if I was?"

He didn't answer but the look in his eyes was all she needed to know.

"No, I'm not a _Woad_ , as you call them. I'm from further North than they," Asta answered, breathing raggedly. Tristan led her to stand next to his fidgeting horse.

Tristan didn't ask where but the tension lifted from his shoulders; if he brought back a Woad woman, even a Woad woman as beautiful as she was, the men would not allow it and one of the men would probably kill her on the spot.

"Saxon?"

Asta turned and spit, bright red blood soaking the pure white snow, a look of pure hatred on her face.

"Who do you think did this?" She looked at her shoulder and torn beautiful leather armor that had belonged to her mother.

"Where were they going?" Tristan asked her with a tense voice. "How many were there?"

"West, or at least that small group was," she said raggedly and out of breath. "I don't know about the rest of them."

He had to get back to the men and tell them, even with this information coming from a woman he didn't trust.

"Can you ride?"

"On a normal day, very well...today, I am not sure. Get the arrow out."

Tristan looked at the small woman in front of him incredulously. Not only was she giving him a command but that command was to remove an arrow embedded deeply in her shoulder and near her chest. The woman coughed and grimaced in pain.

Her breathing was becoming more labored as the moments passed.

She looked into Tristan's eyes and emitted a soft plea, "Please."

He saw the painful pleading in her eyes and moved around behind her.

"You are lucky. The snow kept the arrow tip from going too back far into your chest. The tip is sticking out the back but I can't get a good grip on it with the armor -"

"Cut the armor to get to it...It's ruined anyway," she ground out looking at her weather and battle worn woven leather tunic. Asta reached to grab a knife at her hip but stopped as he started tearing at it with his knife that had appeared almost out of nowhere and his own hands.

The cold air hit her shoulder and she gasped sharply. He had cut a long gash in the back of her tunic, reaching down to the bottom of her shoulder blade. Tristan saw more traces of blue and couldn't help but let his mind wander to what she looked like underneath all of this armor and padding.

His calloused hands moved the leather and the padded fabric under her armor away. Sticky, dried blood pulled away with the fabric and she hissed in pain.

"What is your name?" She heard his gravely voice ask.

"Asta…my name is Asta," the young woman said through gritted teeth.

With his knife, he placed the knife between her skin and the metal of the arrow, pulling it out as he inched the narrow head away from her, worming it out of her porcelain skin.

Asta barely made a noise so he kept working. At one point, she had to steady herself against Cain when he broke off the tip of the arrow so just the wooden shaft was left. He grabbed a hold of the bloody wood of the arrow and knew he could pull it out with one fluid movement.

Asta seemed to sense what he was thinking.

"Do it," she ground out, closing her eyes. Tristan yanked the shaft clean through her chest and out her back. Asta bit her lip so hard it bled down her chin but she never cried out. Her legs gave out and Tristan caught her in his arms.

"Thank you..."

Everything went dark again as she looked up into the man's hypnotizing dark eyes.

Asta woke to a gentle rocking beneath her and surrounded by warm furs that kept the freezing wind that howled away trying to reach her skin. Voices were talking on both sides of her and she heard the steady beat of the hooves of heavy horses. Her chest and shoulder throbbed and ached deep into her core and to breathe was painful but she felt fabric against the wound, feeling the wet, viscous blood that had seeped into the rugged cloth.

"She's a Woad, Tristan," a gruff voice mumbled as Asta's head moved around on the hard and lumpy pillow that was under her head.

"She's not a Woad, Galahad," another voice said.

 _I know that voice…_ Asta thought weakly.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Another voice asked incredulously.

"She is one beautiful Woad, though, I must say. And Tristan here has already been busy trying to get her out of her clothes…I mean, bloody ripped them off of her!" A hearty laugh filled the icy air. "If that doesn't work out for you, I wouldn't mind fucking her by -"

A sudden snap rang through the air followed by a large thud as if something extremely heavy fell from a moderate height. Her thought was deemed correct as some of the horses neighed and stopped sharply, jolting her around on the makeshift bed.

"Fuck, Tristan. What was -"

"Don't speak of her that way. She could probably kill you if she heard the way you were speaking of her, Lancelot."

Asta smiled. _Tristan._

 _All went dark as she was shifted forward again by the moving horses._

She woke again, not knowing if it had been minutes, hours or days but it was dark and the wagon was stopped.

Asta saw flickering coming in through the roughly hewn beams of the wagon from a fire nearby.

She looked around and saw the door was open somewhat and eased her way up off the bed of furs and straw, inching slowly towards the door.

Voices she had heard earlier met her ears and some of them were making crude comments about different women, many of the comments about different "Woad" women and laughter filled the air.

Asta grimaced slightly as she eased herself out of the wagon, steadying herself against one of the rough beams.

She moved forward silently, the crunching of the snow covered by their laughter…or so she thought.

There was only one who noticed the movement and sound she made. He had his bow out and an arrow pointed at her before realizing who it was and lowering it.

"I've already been shot once this month..." Asta said lightly with a pained smirk on her face.

The men stopped talking at once and turned in her direction. She walked forward into the light of the flickering flames.

"And to put any question to rest, no I'm not a Woad, as you call them…or a Saxon." Asta held her head high, trying not to wince as the caked on blood pulled at her sensitive skin.

Some of them knew what she was talking about, that she had heard them earlier, and looked away from her.

Asta walked forward and looked intently at the flickering flame of the roaring fire in the middle of their camp and her mouth watered from the smell of the bird sizzling over the flame. She couldn't remember the last time she had had anything to eat...

She pulled the shredded shoulder of her tunic away, revealing not only the soaked cloth, now a dark brown from old blood but also some blue ink protruding from different parts of her body. Asta inhaled sharply and quickly peeled the sticky cloth away before, in the blink of an eye, unsheathing a short, thin knife, causing many of the men to jump to their feet drawing their own blades. Asta looked up and smiling in a way she hoped would be reassuring, she held up a hand and with the other held out near the fire, bent slowly down to the red hot embers.

"Do you have any wine?" She asked at large, not looking up but rather picking up a thick stick and stoking the fire causing tiny spirals of glowing hot embers to swirl up towards the millions of stars up above.

The looks she got ranged from confused to curious and everywhere inbetween. Tristan got off the rock he had been perched on, came over to her, and offered her his worn container. She smiled and nodded, before downing many mouthfuls.

Asta picked up her small knife and held the sharped tip into the bright coals of the roaring fire. She looked around shortly before reaching over away in the dark and picked up a thick, small stick, placing it in between her teeth and before anyone could say or do anything to stop her, Asta grabbed the hilt sticking out of the fire and pressed the glowing hot blade to the seeping wound on her front.

Asta gasped and groaned around the stick, muttering curses in her mother's tongue but never shouted out as the blade sizzled against her flesh.

She pulled it away, checking the now angry red, but closed wound. Asta glanced up at the stunned faces around her. The man who had helped her, Tristan, she reminded herself, was the only one without a look of shock on his face.

She leaned back down and stuck her knife back into the glowing coals.

Asta looked up at Tristan with a pained smile. "Will you help me with the other one?"

Tristan nodded silently. She picked up the glowing blade and handed it to Tristan. She put the stick back in her mouth and didn't make as much noise this time as he closed the bigger of the two wounds, adrenaline already coursing through her system and making her less aware of the pain.

He finished and handed the knife back to her with an unreadable look on his tattooed face.

"By the gods, Tristan, you didn't tell us she was a female version of you," one of the men said in an awed voice.

Tristan grunted and went to stand against a tree away from them.

"What's your name, girl?" A man with dark locks of curls asked astonished.

"Asta. And I'm no girl," she said with an annoyed look.

Lancelot laughed. "No, I'd say you're not. I apologize, my Lady Asta." He nodded his head and put his rough hand across his armored chest in apology and respect.

"Where do you come from, if you're no Woad or Saxon?"

Asta looked at the multiple faces around her. She looked over toward the darkened area where she had seen the man named Tristan retreat to.

"Far to the Northeast of here," Asta began. "A land much colder, a bitter and biting cold that this place has never known. A land of great warrior men and women...women who raise their own swords and shields. I do not know what you call it here."

Asta swallowed and continued with a just a straight line marring the area where her plump lips should be.

"The Saxons have been to my homeland…many times - have taken and raped women, killed men and children, raided and burned villages."

The men listened closely trying to figure out where this beautifully mysterious, and no doubt strong woman, had come from.

She continued in a soft voice but everyone could hear her.

"They are barbarians but I have also seen my people do the same to other groups of men and women; that is why my grandparents brought my mother here. They taught her to be a ferocious fighter and then she met my father. I was told he was Roman. He died when I was young,"she paused and smiled sadly before continuing, "I do not remember him and my mother died protecting me a few years ago."

"You mentioned you saw Saxons, Asta?" A strong voice rang out.

"Yes, they killed the men and women I was with. They were moving to the West."

"Arthur, we should get back to the Wall and -"

"Artorius? Artorious Castus?" Asta interrupted in an awed voice.

"Yes, my Lady," the same man with the commanding voice and ringlets of dark brown, almost black hair nodded.

"If you will have me, I will fight by your side," Asta said crossing her arm across her chest in respect for the man in front of her.

"We need you to heal but then I would be honored to have such a strong woman by our side," Arthur told her stoking the fire and pulling the large cape of fur closer around him.

Asta bowed her head slightly and smiled.

She had gotten a few pieces of meat and was eating quietly and quickly as they made plans to head back to the Wall as quickly as possible to sound the alarm.

The mens' talking faded out and Asta's bright sky blue eyes locked with Tristan's. The firelight danced wildly in his dark orbs. She quickly looked away when she realized she had been staring.

The talking lapsed into silence.

They all agreed to move at first light and could make it back to the Wall within the day.

Arthur led Asta back to the wagon where she had woken up and told her she could sleep there for the night.

"My thanks, my lord."

"You're welcome, my lady Asta," Arthur honored her by crossing his arm over his chest in respect before turning back to the fire and his men.

Asta climbed awkwardly back into the wagon and settled down into the furs around her, quickly falling into a deep sleep.

 _A man wielding a great sword swung violently towards her and Asta dodged, missing the sharp point with little effort._

 _"I'll kill you, bitch," the man yelled at her in his harsh Germanic tongue._

 _"Try," she retorted simply in the same language, spinning a small dagger in her hand._

 _He charged, missing her completely as Asta lithely jumped around to the side of disgusting man. With great speed, she was suddenly on his back, her spindly arms wrapping tightly around his neck. The small dagger found its way into his neck spraying bright, warm liquid over her small scarred hands, men, and women as they fought around her. Asta jumped down, leaving the man to bleed out._

 _Asta was away from her mother and stole a fleeting glance to see she as she fired arrow after arrow at the men coming towards her and the other warriors around her. Brigid was by her side firing arrows just as quickly. All of their arrows struck true and fell the men to the ground._

 _Men charging at eachother blocked her view and she lost sight of her mother in fray._

 _"Móðir!" she yelled hoping her mother would hear her and respond. Men began to charge Asta and she had to draw her sword._

 _"Asta!" A yell rang out through the din of the swords clashing she looked up in time to see her mother being held by her long blonde hair by a mountain of a man._

 _She ran forward, shoving fighting men out of her way but her mother began yelling at her to stop. She skidded to a stop where the battle seemed to freeze around them. Asta heard Brigid come running up behind her and then grunt as she unsheathed her dual blades and begin fighting a man behind Asta._

 _The man looked straight into her eyes and ran his long glinting blade across and deep into her mother's throat. Asta screamed and ran forward but Brigid had killed the men around her and then grabbed Asta around the middle, pulling her away, screaming her name, and shaking her shoulders._

Tristan woke to a woman's voice yelling and crying out.

He threw off his light fur blanket and ran to the wagon where Asta was sleeping. Upon seeing her, he saw she was crying, shaking, and yelling out in a language he didn't understand, a sheen of sweat covered her forehead and neck.

Tristan stepped up into the small creaking wagon and started gently shaking her shoulders, calling her name.

Asta woke up, unsheathing a small blade by her side. She had it near Tristan's throat before he grabbed her small wrist, disarming her, wrestling her on back onto her back.

She punched, thrashed, and struggled against him while Tristan kept saying her name repeatedly, growing louder and louder until she snapped out of it and woke up fully.

"Tristan?" She asked hoarsely, looking around confused.

"You were having a nightmare, yelling in your sleep," Tristan whispered in his gravely voice.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you," Asta trailed off.

"It is nothing. Are you alright?" Tristan asked quietly.

She was quiet for a moment as she felt tears stream down her face and bit her lip, wishing they would stop. She tried to reach up to wipe them from her face and then Asta seemed to suddenly realize how close they were, Tristan was still pinning her to the fur blankets under her. His eyes that traveled from her shining blue eyes to her lips and back up again, made him realize too.

Tristan began to move off of her before she grabbed his arm, stilling him.

"Will you stay?" Asta asked quietly.

This strong woman was asking him to stay. Tristan realized that the nightmare she had must have shaken her to her core.

He reluctantly agreed and laid down on his side next to her, listening to her breathing in the dark.

Asta rolled over so she was also on her side, facing him.

"Thank you, Tristan," she said quietly before lightly placing a hand on his chest before closing her eyes and instantly falling back to sleep.


End file.
